Chapter Thirty-Nine

Miserable did not begin to describe Daphne’s state over the fortnight since James’s departure. She felt excruciatingly alone, abandoned, and uncertain. Though she missed Linus and worried about his safety, she did not feel his absence as acutely as she did James’s.

But she, along with her sisters, was now traveling to Shropshire to visit their family home and look in on their father, and James was there, seeing to his new duties as estate manager.

Did he miss her? He told her he would, but he hadn’t written. Persephone must have realized Daphne hoped for a letter—no doubt she’d noticed how dejected Daphne felt each time the post had arrived without a missive from him.

“Without a formal understanding between you, he cannot write to you,” Persephone had reminded her after a full week of disappointment. “Lord Tilburn is commendably careful of your reputation. I do not doubt he would write if he were in a position to do so.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Do you really doubt it?” Persephone’s half-scolding, half-empathetic look remained fresh in her memory even a week later as the countryside passed outside the carriage windows.

Persephone was likely correct—James would have written if not for the dim view Society would take on such a thing. It had been quite some time since she’d truly questioned his sincerity. Their past was not without difficulties. For the present, his dedication to her was real. But what did the future hold?

If her family noticed her preoccupation during their journey, they did not speak of it. Persephone still felt and looked a bit green about the gills. Adam fussed over her comfort and well-being. Artemis kept up a constant stream of chatter they only vaguely attended to until Adam commanded her to immerse herself in a “lousy novel” and “cease abusing our ears.” She took it in stride and promptly produced a gothic offering from her overlarge reticule.

A flood of conflicting emotions washed over Daphne as the carriage turned up the gravel drive that led to their home. Happy memories mixed with painful ones. Her father’s repeated dismissive gestures fought for precedence in her thoughts with her siblings’ cheerful laughter during rare outings to their favorite picnicking spot. And mingled amidst all of it were thoughts of James. He was there somewhere.

The butler greeted them upon their arrival. He informed Adam in an aside Daphne strained to overhear that Lord Tilburn was with a tenant that morning, seeing to an urgent bit of business, and wished them to know he regretted not being on hand to greet them.

Daphne could not say which she felt more: grateful for the reprieve or disappointed at not seeing him.

Everyone made their way to their various bedchambers with the casualness borne of familiarity.

Which of the tenants had James been called upon to see to? She knew all of them. Her heart ached at the thought of any of those hardworking families struggling. Was it a minor crisis or something more pressing? She shook off the worry. James was more than capable of seeing to the business of an estate, and he would do so with unwavering dedication.

Daphne untied the ribbons of her bonnet as she reached her bedchamber, her thoughts flying in hundreds of directions at once. Only after she stepped fully inside did her surroundings at all register. She stood, mouth slightly agape, bonnet dangling on its ribbons held distractedly in her hand.

Her bedchamber had been entirely transformed. Poverty had rendered most of their home austere and practical over the years they’d lived there. Though she’d had the means and the permission to change it since Adam and Persephone’s marriage, Daphne had never done so. Her rooms at Falstone Castle in Northumberland and Falstone House in London were all that was comfortable and pleasing, yet she hadn’t personalized those spaces overly much either.

This bedchamber, though, the only one she had ever truly felt was hers, did not look at all the way it once had. Gone were the drab and worn window hangings, replaced by sheer white draperies billowing in a light breeze slipping in through the open window. The quilt made from discarded scraps no longer lay stretched across the bed, a coverlet of vibrant greens and browns in its place, gorgeous pillows complementing its splendor. Fresh flowers sat in a vase on the bedside table, alongside a miniature Daphne did not immediately recognize.

She picked up the tiny portrait. Tears started to her eyes. Though she had never seen that particular miniature, she knew its subject instantly: her mother. How she wished she’d known her, that she had any memories of her that had not come secondhand.

Her eyes lighted next on an armchair, faded and nicked, set comfortably close to the small fireplace across the room. She pushed back the lump of emotion that instantly rose at the sight of the very chair in which she had spent her earliest remembered days on her father’s lap, listening to his stories. Her only happy memories with him were tied to that battered bit of furniture. But who had placed it there? Who could possibly have realized the connection?

She ran her fingers over the still-familiar contours of its back and arms, desperately searching her memory for the sound of her father’s voice, the laughter and happiness she’d once heard in it. She hoped that in a day or two she would find the courage to sit in it and think back on the man her father had once been and the carefree child she could almost remember being.

She pulled herself away, returning her mother’s miniature to its place on the bedside table, then crossed to a tall chest she’d never before seen though knew precisely its function. From her countless visits to the local apothecary, she’d learned to recognize an apothecary cabinet; she’d wished for one ever since.

The two dozen drawers, beautifully inlaid and charmingly worn, still bore their labels. Fennel. Catnip. Feverfew. So many herbs she’d scrimped and saved to purchase as a child and learned to use out of a desperate worry that something would happen to her family and she would lose them all.

One particular drawer captured her attention: myrrh. Other young girls likely dreamed of dolls or beautiful dresses. She used to promise herself that if she ever came into a fortune, she’d buy myrrh. She never had.

Daphne pulled the drawer open only to gasp aloud at what she saw. Myrrh. She had myrrh. Every other drawer also held the items its labels indicated. Here before her was what would have amounted to a vast treasure during her years of struggle.

On the very top of the cabinet, she could see the corner of a book and reached up to pull it down. An apothecary’s guide to herbs and medicines. She thumbed through the pages, not stopping to read any of the entries. As she did so, a folded piece of parchment fell out and drifted to the floor.

She picked it up and unfolded the paper. It proved to be a short note written in an unfamiliar hand, addressed to her.

Miss Lancaster,

I understand from Lord Tilburn that you have an interest in and an aptitude for herbal healing. I have reached an age where continuing my practice is no longer practical. Knowing this cabinet and its contents will be in worthy hands sets my mind considerably at ease.

The missive was signed “M. Hapstead,” a name she had never before heard, though she guessed him to be an apothecary of advancing years. She could not imagine he would simply give her the cabinet, not to mention all its contents—the collection was far too valuable. Someone must have purchased it. James had been mentioned, but Daphne knew him to be entirely without funds. Adam, though he cared for her just as he would his own sister, had he one, would not have understood how much such a thing would mean to her.

She turned around, examining again the change in her room. To her knowledge, her family members seldom came in there. She did not venture into the others’ chambers either. They were private domains. No one would have thought to engineer such a change, nor realize one was long overdue.

The housekeeper would not have undertaken a redecoration; such did not fall under her jurisdiction.

Daphne sat, dazed, on her nearly unrecognizable bed. As the shock began to wear off, she came to the indisputable realization that she loved her new bedchamber—adored it. The room felt so serene. Even the colors were precisely what she would wish for, earthy and calming. And though she’d never seen so many decorative pillows on a bed in her life, the touch was charming rather than excessive. One even had tiny embroidered decorations: delicate flowers and—she leaned closer—birds. Her heart hammered. Not merely birds; they were sparrows.

James. Only he would think to add that.

Her eyes stole around the room once more. No. She could not imagine a gentleman ever thinking to alter the appearance of a room. Yet somehow it seemed almost possible.

Daphne pulled the sparrow-adorned pillow into her arms, clinging to it as her brain struggled to make sense of everything. She realized then that she had missed a letter partially hidden beneath the pillow she now held.

The handwriting was Linus’s. The family received a general missive from him now and again, assuring them he was well and informing them of his activities, though they all suspected he skipped over the more difficult parts of all he experienced. He had never written specifically to her.

Daphne slipped off her half boots and pulled her legs up onto the bed. She leaned back against the soft mountain of pillows and broke the seal on Linus’s letter.

Dearest Daphne,

You know me well enough to realize I am not one for writing letters. I have come to understand, however, that I have done you a disservice in not sharing with you something I ought to have years ago. The memory is difficult, and I have very seldom spoken of it.

I remember well your heartbreak when Evander and I left for sea. Even the ignorance of youth did not hide that fact from me. He took a great deal of ribbing from our shipmates for the multitude of letters he sent you. We never reached a port but he had a missive, often more than one, ready to send home. I wonder sometimes if you realize how much he adored you.

No one in the family ever talked about Evander. Sometimes it felt like he’d never existed.

I miss him. Heavens, I miss him.

She took a shaky breath, so many emotions gripping her. She returned to the letter, pulled to it by some unseen force.

I do not mean to inflict further pain on you, for I care far too much to want to see you hurt. I hope you will understand that I mean only to show you that you were never forgotten. I was with our brother when he passed. He spoke of you, Daphne. Even in those final moments, you were never far from his mind. In the years since, you have often been in my thoughts as well. And I confess myself relieved when I saw that Adam had come to cherish you as Evander did and as I have learned to do.

Such sentiments probably should have been delivered in person, but emotional discussions never come easy for me. Please know that I am sincere, however clumsy I may be at expressing myself.

Yours sincerely,

Linus

She did not know how long she spent rereading the letter, her arms yet wrapped around her pillow. Thoughts of her late brother brought the usual feelings of grief and loss. But something changed as she sat there. A sense of peace began to penetrate the sadness.

All was quiet other than the light rustling of the new draperies. She glanced at the portrait of her mother, then across to her father’s chair, then at the apothecary cabinet. The room could not have felt more tranquil, more perfect.

She knew that somehow James had a hand in all of it. This was the kindhearted and gentle young man she had treasured from the first moment they’d met, the gentleman she had loved through all the heartache and pain of the past few months.

He held her very heart in his hands, and she intended to find the courage to trust him with it.